Thursday, February 10, 2011

A message from our director...

I recently became aware of an event that is called the National College Crawl, that many of you may wish to be made aware of.


This event is described as by the promoters as: “Presented by Lucky Moose Events, The National College Crawl is one-of-a-kind event that will bring students from across the country together for one night of drinking, debauchery and even charity. On April 16, 2011, students at universities both large and small will take part in an organized bar crawl in their college towns, with 10 percent of the profits from T-Shirt sales going directly to philanthropy.

Originally, Dayton, Ohio’s “Kids in Need Foundation” was noted as the intended recipient. I contacted this organization, and evidently, others have too, and it appears that the Directing Manager of the foundation has contacted the two organizers and has requested that their name be taken their promotional materials as the intended charity. Within the last 18 hours their name has been removed from the event’s main website.

The promoters are very social media savvy and have utilized several on-line social media platforms. Minimally, there is probably a lot that we could learn from these entrepreneurs in using social media. The sites that I found in just a few minutes are:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NationalCrawl

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-College-Crawl/101067456638452#!/pages/National-College-Crawl/101067456638452?v=wall

National College Crawl Website - http://nationalcollegecrawl.com/

Currently, it appears that University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University, and Western Illinois University have “paid student representatives” to promote the event locally. It appears that part of the student reps responsibilities include developing a local facebook site. It also appears that the local reps are to try to coordinate waived cover charges, drink specials, etc. for those wearing the event tee-shirt that day. UIUC and WIU appear to have local facebook pages already created. In fact WIU already has over 1000 students who will be “attending” and over another 200 “who may be attending.” I am sure that other Illinois universities will be joining up.

IHEC would encourage institutions of higher education and communities working with higher education institutions to consider the following:

1) Monitor the situation that is developing on your campus, mainly through facebook and other social media

2) Develop social marking campaigns and other educational interventions designed to promote abstinence and harm reduction approaches

3) Consider contacting local liquor control commissioner and discuss preventative/proactive measures to work with local alcohol establishments to discourage drink specials, waived cover charges, etc that may violate local and state alcohol sales and service laws.

4) Work with local and university law enforcement to increase and enhance enforcement during that weekend

5) Work with on-campus residence life and off campus housing to prepare for pre-partying events, after-bar events, and the negative alcohol-related consequences affiliated with this event.

Sincerely,

Eric

1 comment:

  1. I understand your foundation and greatly sympathize with the ways it shapes our youth. But the fact of the matter is that college students of drinking age will drink regardless of the situation. You can live in your perfect world where you believe nobody commits any wrong doings. The world is not perfect and this event has the opportunity to give charity to an organization that could really use the money to turn around children's lives. Did you personally speak to the event coordinator prior to contacting the "Kids in Need Foundation"? Wouldn't the funds raised inform kids on the wrong doings of drugs and alcohol abuse? You're not a bright man, are you....?

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